A hardcover book is intended as a brochure or a threaded book, formed with a book block and a non-foldable cover. The cover comprises two cover boards and a spine in cardboard coupled to a covering paper, generally plasticized, of cloth or other flexible material. The back of the cover boards is glued at the lateral flaps of the backstrip to the paste down sheet of the endpapers, while the spine of the cover is spaced from the binding edge of the book block. Books of this type have a consistent value, given by the hardcover and are also resistant to the use also for threadless text block. On the other hand, the binding plants which carry out hardcover books are complex and need several specialized machines and/or long working times. Further, specialized personnel are necessary, mainly when books of different dimensions and/or characteristics should be bound.
The paperback books have a cover of flexible cardboard, with a spine directly glued to the binding edge of a text block, which can be bound by high productivity binders and, therefore, with inherent low costs. For these reasons, the paperback books are generally included in so-called “economic” collections. The binding plants which produce such types of books can be further programmed for carrying out bindings on books of different dimensions and, “books on demand”, allowing low cost production of books in limited quantity.
An equipment for binding paperback books of the type above defined has been disclosed in the Italian patent application TO2009A000477, filed on Jun. 23, 2009, in the name of the applicant Tecnau S.r.l. and of ROTOMAIL Italy S.p.A. and having, as counterpart, the European patent application EP 2 269 823.
As a matter of fact, the market accepts that, under the same contents, paper quality and printing, hardcover books can be sold at prices higher than the ones of paperback books. Nevertheless, the difference between the sale prices results meaningfully greater than the difference of costs given only to the costs of the materials used in the two typologies of books.